A struggle to make the grade
Chinese jobs hard to come by for overseas grads, students
Prisca Kyalisiima refreshed her email inbox and began scanning the most recent messages. None of them were what she had been waiting for: A response to her application to the World Bank’s office in Beijing.
Her sent folder was filled with email applications for various jobs, each including a cover letter and tailored resume.
Last month, the 27-year-old Ugandan started her sophomore year as a PhD candidate in finance at Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics. She needs to attend lectures only two days a week, and she is desperate to land part-time work or an internship to use the rest of her time productively. But her job search has stalled.
“I’m a very hardworking person. I’m used to working, not sitting and being idle,” she said. “I really want to work at one of the Chinese banks and see how they do things, because I know China is well-known for advanced technology.
“This is one thing I’d feel really sorry about if I leave China without having that experience. It’s one of my big dreams.”
She is not alone in her frustration. Foreign students have long complained about the difficulties of finding work in China, before or after graduation. It is a problem local and central authorities are trying to solve by tweaking visa and employment regulations.
Some graduates in Beijing have also taken action into their own hands by setting up a group that offers advice and training to overseas students looking for work in China.
Foreign students offer a range of possible reasons why they might struggle in the Chinese market.
However, the most common reason students give is the fierce competition.
Official statistics show 7.95 million university students graduated in 2017. In Beijing alone, more than 230,000 graduates poured into the job market.
Ossian Heulin from France, who is working toward a master’s in industrial engineering and automation at Beihang University in Beijing, said the sheer weight of applications for jobs and internships at major companies mean it is hard for foreign students to stand out.
Although they come across as more outgoing, self-confident and creative, they do not have much more on their Chinese counterparts than perhaps fluency in another language, the 23-year-old said.
“Chinese now have most of the skills needed for any part-time job, and the government is welcoming elite workers, those who actually bring high value you can’t find in China, so young professionals who are just studying and don’t have any expertise do not generate much interest,” he added.
Universities do offer career advice and other support for international students, but services are far more limited compared with those for Chinese, while the language barrier remains a big hurdle for job seekers.
“I think the willingness of universities to help international students still needs to be improved,” Heulin said. “It’s a need that is being felt by all the people I know and have worked with.”
Busy as a bee
To build his skill set and boost his chances of attracting Chinese recruiters, Heulin started volunteering and has become involved in Beijing’s burgeoning startup community.
He’s now chief innovation officer for Planitworld, a startup dedicated to solving the problems caused by urban waste, and director of Startup Grind Beijing, which fosters entrepreneurship and helps students understand and seize opportunities in the Chinese market. Both positions are unpaid.
He said the experience he gained in those positions quickly led to several companies offering him internships. However, in the end, he turned them all down and instead set up BeHive, a nonprofit group that organizes gatherings, workshops and lectures around Beijing for international students looking for work in China.
Like Heulin, co-founders Petros Djakouris and Costas Georgiou, two postgraduate students from Cyprus, have been in the same position as the people they aim to assist: They came to China to study, fell in love with the place, and wanted to stay. But they had no idea how to look for work or what the visa requirements were.
They went to a career services center for advice, but everything was in Chinese, said Georgiou, 27. “So we decided that with no one giving us the answer, we could organize a community like BeHive so that we could help each other,” he said.
Georgiou and Djakouris, who both previously studied in the United Kingdom, completed an intensive Mandarin course at UIBE in 2017. Georgiou then joined an international talent program operated by HNA Capital, the Chinese conglomerate, before starting at a law firm, while Djakouris, 26, now does marketing for a technology company.
Using the BeHive platform, which was launched in March 2017, they have organized 25 workshops focusing on topics including networking, interviews, intercultural communication and presentation skills. They have also partnered with other organizations and invited professionals, usually experts in presentation and leadership, to give speeches.
Professional trainer and consultant Malcolm Nerva has been working with BeHive almost since the beginning and has offered many insights on job hunting. In June, the group organized a self-awareness workshop facilitated by Nerva, pointing out ways to discover one’s strengths and weakness through personality assessments. The event took place at Tsinghua University’s Schwarzman College and attracted more than 150 people.
Past guest speakers have included Andrew Shirman, CEO and founder of the NGO Education in Sight, and Alex Weber, a corporate trainer who has worked for Audi, Lenovo, JD and UNICEF.
“They train students for free because they believe in our vision and they can see the lack of career support for students, especially in Beijing,” Djakouris said, adding that BeHive has helped over 1,000 students, equipping them with the professional skills needed to find employment.
The group is now made up of 30 unpaid volunteers, from countries including China, Russia, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan and Iran.
The plan was to take BeHive beyond simply training job seekers and create a space where people can make friends, have fun and enjoy events, according to its founders. They are inviting more Chinese students to share the resources and hope to team up with job fairs and build closer links with university career centers.
Changing the rules
In August, the Ministry of Education told China Daily the government had decided to lift its nationwide ban on international students finding paid part-time work. Since 2000, foreign students had only been allowed to get unpaid jobs and internships.
The move came after Shanghai and Beijing relaxed local regulations to encourage students to start their career or business in China.
Shanghai introduced a pilot program in 2015 that enabled foreign students to launch businesses in the city’s Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone for up to two years after graduation.
The Ministry of Public Security also released a policy in 2016 that cleared the way for foreign students to get paid part-time work or launch a startup at Zhongguancun Science Park, the so-called Silicon Valley of Beijing.
Last year, the central government announced that students with postgraduate degrees and those from “prestigious” universities can now obtain work permits immediately after graduation, instead of having to wait a minimum of two years.
Zhang Shujun, head of Tianjin University Press, and Feng Baoping, a lecturer at Tianjin University’s School of International Education, said in a research paper published in 2014 that allowing foreign students to work is in line with the development of society and will help them become more independent.
“It will not only ease their financial burden and improve their understanding of Chinese society, but it will also help them accumulate work experience and strengthen their comprehensive capabilities,” the paper said, adding that off-campus work experience should be included in Chinese university programs.
Heulin said the new policies will be warmly welcomed by international students, as they will allow them to make money while gaining knowledge.
“They are very valuable policies and hopefully they will work out,” he said.